Madonna Says Budget Dispute Killed Biopic, But the Project Is Still Alive

Madonna says disagreements over money were what stopped work on the planned biopic about her life at Universal Studios. In an interview published Monday night in the American magazine Interview, she said the same disputes are still complicating efforts to turn the project into a Netflix series.

Madonna said she spent two years developing the film with Universal and had been supposed to write and direct it herself. The central fight, she said, was over the scale of the budget needed to tell her life story, which she argued was too large for the studio to approve.

To cut costs, Madonna proposed moving production to Serbia, but Universal rejected the idea. She said studio executives also questioned whether she would be able to sustain a long shoot in the country. After the talks with Universal failed, she explored adapting the project as a biographical series for Netflix.

That television version has also run into legal and logistical problems. Madonna said Universal still holds the rights to the screenplay she wrote, and buying them back would be expensive. She added that efforts to find an executive producer for the series went on for about nine months without success. Despite the setbacks, reports say the project remains in development, and Madonna is now working with Canadian producer Shawn Levy for Netflix. Actress Julia Garner is still attached to play the lead role.